Three bombs exploded on the Underground while a fourth device was detonated on one of the city's famous double decker buses.

Yet from that tragedy, a story of inspirational theatre has just had its world premiere as part of the 2013 Adelaide Festival.

"Thursday" has been inspired by the amazing story of Adelaide's Gill Hicks who lost both her legs in the attacks which killed 37 people and left another 700 injured.

It was a television interview with Gill in 2007 that first attracted the interest of director Chris Drummond.

"I was obviously moved and inspired by her story, particularly by the fact that she had chosen to reject anger and hate and retribution.

"What had moved her the most was that total strangers had climbed down into that hole and risked their own lives to save her, when in that moment she was barely recognisable as a human being."

Chris says the first thing he had to do was to find a writer who could bring his vision to reality and so teamed up with UK playwright Bryony Lavery.

The next step was contacting Gill and asking if she would be happy for them to work on a project inspired by her experience.

Chris says "Thursday" has taken a long time to get from an idea to the stage.

He met in 2008 with English Touring Theatre to discuss the idea of them working with Adelaide's Brink Productions.

"There we had an Adelaide company and a London company wanting to explore a story about an Adelaide woman in London so there was a lot of synchronicity there."

Chris says the end result is a play that follows the intermingled lives of nine strangers.

"You see these strangers wake up out of bed and go through the things that we all do every morning, having breakfast, going to the loo, having a shower, heading out into the day.

"Everybody's apartment is superimposed onto the one apartment so everybody comes in some quite magical way out of the same bed and they pass each other like ghosts through the rooms of the apartment."

Chris says the play doesn't explore the psychology or the character of the terrorist.

"I guess you're talking about the story of a woman whose body's been blown apart and a society that's been blown apart and the question is how does one put themselves back together, how does the society put itself back together."

"Thursday" features cast and crew from both Australia and Britain.

Its Adelaide Festival season at the Norwood Concert Hall runs until March 16.